For Keeps

travelling

2012-02-03T21:20:00.004-06:00

This is the spot:—how mildly does the sun
Shine in between the fading leaves! the air

In the habitual silence of this wood
Is more than silent: and this bed of heath,

Where shall we find so sweet a resting-place?

Come!—let me see thee sink into a dream
Of quiet thoughts,—protracted till thine eye

Be calm as water when the winds are gone
And no one can tell whither.—my sweet friend!

We two have had such happy hours together

That my heart melts in me to think of it.

- william wordsworth

(7 am in my bedroom, with my fellow fur-brained

conquistador of the morning at my side, or purring on my stomach...)

we dogs of a thursday off

2012-01-26T22:01:00.004-06:00

The wine of uncharted days,

Their unsteady stance against the working world,

The intense intoxication of nothing to be done,
A day off,

The dance of the big-hearted dog
In us, freed into a sudden green, an immense field:

Off we go, more run than care, more dance—
If a polka could be done not in a room but straight

Ahead, into the beautiful distance, the booming
Sound of the phonograph weakening, but our legs

Getting stronger with their bounding practice:

This day, that feeling, drunkenness

Born of indecision, lack of focus, but everything
Forgiven: Today is a day exposed for what it is,

A workday suddenly turned over on its back,
Hoping to be rubbed.

-- alberto rios

ring out, wild bells

2012-01-16T21:31:00.007-06:00

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light:

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind

For those that here we see no more;

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

-- lord alfred tennyson

(a mix of camera phone and SLR photos taken in idaho, kansas, missouri and illinois

during my travels this winter)

talk

2011-12-23T11:40:00.000-06:00

My body is

A little

Green sea.

Bears bathe

In it

Then go to

Sleep in the

Basement.

A four-wheeler

Slams past,

And then the

Sea splashes

Around and

Around.

O little sea,

O my body,

Sit here with me

While I just talk.

-- noelle kocot

a young poet

2011-12-11T12:43:00.003-06:00

For begging beauty
one can hardly blame the artist

sleeping like butter in the sun
taking no action for action

some prefer being a yellow rose petal
I learned when I traveled

the young poet saying a prayer
is a form of panic

- jane miller

(from trips to boston to visit g and

our jaunt down to lil rhody)

earth took of earth

2011-12-11T12:41:00.002-06:00

Earth took of earth earth with ill;

Earth other earth gave earth with a will.

Earth laid earth in the earth stock-still:

Then earth in earth had of earth its fill.

- anonymous

fire dreams

2011-11-29T00:28:00.003-06:00

(Written to be read aloud, if so be, Thanksgiving Day)

I remember here by the fire,
In the flickering reds and saffrons,
They came in a ramshackle tub,
Pilgrims in tall hats,
Pilgrims of iron jaws,
Drifting by weeks on beaten seas,
And the random chapters say
They were glad and sang to God.

And so
Since the iron-jawed men sat down
And said, "Thanks, O God,"
For life and soup and a little less
Than a hobo handout to-day,
Since gray winds blew gray patterns of sleet on Plymouth Rock,

Since the iron-jawed men sang "Thanks, O God,"
You and I, O Child of the West,
Remember more than ever
November and the hunter's moon,
November and the yellow-spotted hills.

And so
In the name of the iron-jawed men
I will stand up and say yes till the finish is come and gone.
God of all broken hearts, empty hands, sleeping soldiers,
God of all star-flung beaches of night sky,
I and my love-child stand up together to-day and sing: "Thanks, O God."

(en route from kc to nyc)

(carl sandburg)

wide mouthed frog

2011-11-28T00:39:00.002-06:00

giving mick jagger a run for his money.

reading rainbow

2011-11-28T00:37:00.003-06:00

stolen from A.

jimmy fallon: you make me laugh, you make you laugh.

your brain is yours

2011-11-14T17:27:00.002-06:00

I am baptized by coins with a faint smell of elderflower.

I transfigure, blink in one part of the house and then another.

A holy night unfolds and stands weakly.

A child chemist mixes a star in a test tube.

Glass shatters lightly.

I am a saint.

I soothe with marmalade and tonic.

I embroider a pillow and give it a squeeze.

I attach a heavy gold necklace to a horse rump.

We clang along across the empire.

Every church window flies open in greeting.

Every bell rings weary.

I stretch my arms out and receive light.

My face appears on a tree.

Red flowers spring forward.

I attend a funeral, and then another.

My face appears in water, lightly distorted.

I am tired like the ancients were tired.

-- Natalie Lyalin

(taken at a friend's house,

embarking on a new project...)

high lines

2011-10-30T14:48:00.003-05:00

The noun one keeps batting away
refuses declension.

He says, I don’t want to be
twenty-four again.
Twenty-four was a handful:

the flawless
meatflesh, best self, miraculous
leap/thump on the hardwood,
the twist and splash.

The exuberance
in the present tense,

the timebound blood pump
two throbbing lungs butt
in their bone cage

surges to bursting.
He does not perdure

in this internal defection:
so rare, and so heroic.

- "rondo" by janet holmes

(evo pics taken during a trip to the high line

over the weekend)

my daily train

2011-10-30T14:40:00.003-05:00

Team Nike: The 1 Train's New Favorite Team from Game Seven Marketing on Vimeo.

the 1 train is watching.

anoesis

2011-10-24T22:55:00.005-05:00

anoesis \an-oh-EE-sis\, noun:

A state of mind consisting of pure sensation or emotion without cognitive content.

Normally, on my long-distance walks, anoesis descends within a few miles: the mental tape loop of infuriating resentments, or inane pop lyrics, or nonce phrases gives way to the greeny-beige noise of the outdoors.

-- Will Self, Psychogeography

Wiggy felt sudden release from all tension: exalted, drawn up in a freedom like dance. Then he was staring in stillness, for a moment in anoesis.

-- Richard Henderson, Chasing Charlie

Anoesis is derived from the Greek word noesis meaning reason or intellect and the prefix a- meaning not. Thus it means, no reason.

nights on the peninsula

2011-10-24T15:59:00.004-05:00

We could not separate ourselves from our endless making.
We were always fabricating time, God, paradise,
the bell-shaped lupines, the rough-grained elm
and smooth beech. We made the night sky from a rusty hinge,
the sea from a sigh and a bead of sweat. We made love
long before dawn. We constantly modified each other,
adding a leer to the other's face, or a smirk, even in sleep.

What kind of a tool-maker invents eternity and exile
and makes them race, like a child with the index and middle finger?
Even in dreams we bore the burden of waking, we called it suffering.

Even in a trance we had maps and blueprints. In the deepest dream
we received the gift of death—it rained on that peninsula.
The wind passed like a sponge over the gambrel roofs.
The leaves showed a blank side, veined like a cresting wave.

We were almost home, we thought. We had never seen this world
but we sensed it, like a cat's breath against our wrists:
we were married, the bees loved us, the ocean might relent,
the child muttered over a handful of dust and spit.

- d. nurkse

(1. bob dylan or g's shadow on the newest addition

to the limestone garden of wash u buildings;

2. e, g and my feet at the alive magazine top chef

burger contest in stl this weekend;

3. bwi-->lambert, the sheepish airport)

roll models

2011-10-20T14:29:00.003-05:00

this is how i want to take pictures

jonnek jonneksson

cliff marck

they don't love you like i love you

2011-10-20T14:14:00.004-05:00

maps are a large reason why i'm falling in love with epidemiology. the justice mapping center is an online warehouse for maps documenting and describing social issues (with a large focus on the demographics of prison populations). If you're not that interested, you'll spend at least fifteen minutes perusing. If you are interested - HOURS.

a lover

2011-10-16T16:36:00.002-05:00

If I could catch the green lantern of the firefly
I could see to write you a letter.

-- amy lowell

(pic taken by g)

prayer for my unborn niece or nephew

2011-10-16T16:20:00.005-05:00

Today, November 28th, 2005, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
I am staring at my hands in the common pose
of the hungry and penitent. I am studying again
the emptiness of my clasped hands, wherein I see
my sister-in-law days from birthing
the small thing which will erase,
in some sense, the mystery of my father's departure;

their child will emerge with ten fingers,

and toes, howling, and his mother will hold

his gummy mouth to her breast and the stars

will hang above them and not one bomb

will be heard through that night. And my brother will stir,

waking with his wife the first few days, and he will run

his long fingers along the soft terrain of his child's skull

and not once will he cover the child's ears

or throw the two to the ground and cover them

from the blasts. And this child will gaze

into a night which is black and quiet.

She will pull herself up to her feet
standing like a buoy in wind-grooved waters,
falling, and rising again, never shaken
by an explosion. And her grandmother
will watch her stumble through a park or playground,
will watch her sail through the air on swings,
howling with joy, and never once
will she snatch her from the swing and run
for shelter because again, the bombs are falling.

The two will drink cocoa, the beautiful lines
in my mother's face growing deeper as she smiles
at the beautiful boy flipping the pages of a book
with pictures of dinosaurs, and no bomb
will blast glass into this child's face, leaving
the one eye useless. No bomb will loosen the roof,
crushing my mother while this child sees
plaster and wood and blood where once his Nana sat.

This child will not sit with his Nana, killed by a bomb,
for hours. I will never drive across two states
to help my brother bury my mother this way. To pray
and weep and beg this child to speak again.
She will go to school with other children,
and some of them will have more food than others,
and some will be the witnesses of great crimes,
and some will describe flavors with colors, and some
will have seizures, and some will read two grade
levels ahead, but none of them will tip their desks
and shield their faces, nor watch as their teacher
falls out of her shoes, clinging to the nearest child.

This child will bleed
and cry and curse his living parents
and slam doors and be hurt and hurt again. And she will feel
clover on her bare feet. Will swim in frigid waters.
Will climb trees and spy cardinal chicks blind
and peeping. And no bomb will kill this child's parents.
No bomb will kill this child's grandparents. No bomb
will kill this child's uncles.

And no bomb will kill
this child, who will raise to his mouth
some small morsel of food of which there is more
while bombs fall from the sky like dust
brushed from the hands of a stupid god and children
whose parents named them will become dust
and their parents will drape themselves in black
and dream of the tiny mouths which once reared
to suckle or gasp at some bird sailing by
and their tears will make a mud which will heal nothing,
and today I will speak no word
except the name of that child whose absence
makes the hands of her parents shiver. A name
which had a meaning.

As will yours.

-- ross gay

letter to new york

2011-10-13T16:36:00.004-05:00

In your next letter I wish you'd say

where you are going and what you are doing;

how are the plays, and after the plays

what other pleasures you're pursuing:

taking cabs in the middle of the night,

driving as if to save your soul

where the road goes round and round the park

and the meter glares like a moral owl,

and the trees look so queer and green

standing alone in big black caves

and suddenly you're in a different place

where everything seems to happen in waves,

and most of the jokes you just can't catch,

like dirty words rubbed off a slate,

and the songs are loud but somehow dim

and it gets so terribly late,

and coming out of the brownstone house

to the gray sidewalk, the watered street,

one side of the buildings rises with the sun

like a glistening field of wheat.

—Wheat, not oats, dear. I'm afraid

if it's wheat it's none of your sowing,

nevertheless I'd like to know

what you are doing and where you are going.

-- elizabeth bishop

year of the amateur

2011-09-21T22:45:00.005-05:00

Recall the frontier when the business
of memory booms, when broadbands uncoil

and clouds swell with sticky portals, amassing
to a monsoon of live-streams.

Burn your chattel to keep the cloud afloat

so its tears can freeze to snow.

The voice flatlines in this season of pulp:

The artist makes miniature churches out of drain pulp,
The Indonesian rainforest is pulped,

the last illuminated gold leaves are pulped so we

gather and watch an otter nom nom

sweet urchin to a pulp.

We laugh softly.

- cathy park hong

(top three: char's apartment in philly. bottom two: bus ride from 168th downtown after water main break shut down the subway.)

(speaking of amateur - realized all my photos of late have been evo camera phone products.

looking forward to breaking out my old film and digital favorites during my (many!)

afternoons and mornings off here in the city)

mannahatta

2011-09-11T20:30:00.000-05:00

I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,

Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name.

Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane,

unruly, musical, self-sufficient,

I see that the word of my city is that word from of old,

Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays,

superb,

Rich, hemm'd thick all around with sailships and

steamships, an island sixteen miles long, solid-founded,

Numberless crowded streets, high growths of iron, slender,

strong, light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies,

Tides swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown,

The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining

islands, the heights, the villas,

The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the lighters,

the ferry-boats, the black sea-steamers well-model'd,

The down-town streets, the jobbers' houses of business, the

houses of business of the ship-merchants and money-

brokers, the river-streets,

Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week,

The carts hauling goods, the manly race of drivers of horses,

the brown-faced sailors,

The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing

clouds aloft,

The winter snows, the sleigh-bells, the broken ice in the

river, passing along up or down with the flood-tide or

ebb-tide,

The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-form'd,

beautiful-faced, looking you straight in the eyes,

Trottoirs throng'd, vehicles, Broadway, the women, the

shops and shows,

A million people—manners free and superb—open voices—

hospitality—the most courageous and friendly young

men,

City of hurried and sparkling waters! city of spires and masts!

City nested in bays! my city!

- walt whitman

i'd like a little flashlight

2011-09-08T10:12:00.001-05:00

and I'd like to get naked and into bed and be hot radiating heat from the inside these sweaters and fleeceys do nothing to keep out the out or keep my vitals in—some drafty body I've got leaking in and out in all directions I'd like to get naked into bed but hot on this early winter afternoon already dusky grim and not think of all the ways I've gone about the world and shown myself a fool, shame poking holes in my thinned carapace practically lacy and woefully feminine I'd like to get naked into bed and feel if not hot then weightless as I once was in the sensory deprivation tank in Madison, Wisconsin circa 1992 I paid money for that perfectly body-temperatured silent pitch dark tank to do what? play dead and not die? that was before email before children before I knew anything more than the deaths of a few loved ones which were poisoned nuts of swallowed grief but nothing of life of life giving which cuts open the self bursting busted unsolvable I'd like to get naked! into the bed of my life but hot hot my little flicker-self trumped up somehow blind and deaf to all the dampening misery of my friends' woe-oh-ohs and I'd like a little flashlight to write poems with this lousy day not this poem I'm writing under the mostly flat blaze of bulb but a poem written with the light itself a tiny fleeting love poem to life hot hot hot a poem that would say "oh look here a bright spot of life, oh look another!"

-- rachel zucker

the hurricane

2011-08-29T16:25:00.005-05:00

The tree lay down

on the garage roof

and stretched, You

have your heaven,

it said, go to it.

- william carlos williams

(taken at the narragansett beach house,

which appeared to weather hurricane irene just fine)

into bad weather bounding

2011-08-29T16:14:00.007-05:00

Colligated points, dust, ultimately a cloud, as in
an orographic cloud in Colorado cringing against
a horizon. Boundaried vision and vapor conspire

to exhale, exalt into rain random dispersal into

the present: I see as far as that. I never saw farther.

In sinking air, mammatus cloud a sign the storm
has passed is passing... I walk happily whenever
or sometimes pass the last bad sign the bounded

land, I am sad as you are doubtless. Sad said
the bad man, somber. Otherwise say:
In my room the world is beyond
my understanding;/ But when I walk I see
that it consists of three or four hills
and a cloud.

- bin ramke

(from st louis to new york city)

central west end sunset

2011-08-09T23:10:00.003-05:00

100 degrees of summer sweetness

2011-07-28T20:22:00.005-05:00

easily the best (and hottest)

summer of the last several years...

purgatorio

2011-07-28T00:03:00.004-05:00

Come to the surface of the screen with your piscine light

and oxygen holes and press for moments

against the page—as if seeking to pass through it.

Make with the trunk of your body the third letter—

in a motion move the ends of your face and caudal fin

each to your right, toward each other — C.

Toward the third hour on your axis—

and in the same motion sweep your trunk back,

tail beat pushing through the ninth hour, moving you

headfirst in the new direction and off the screen—

this movement follow with movement of more bodies,

simultaneous, unselfconscious, aggregate—

choral, co-created, a gathering

of you in the mind—oscillate behind the screen like a wheel

of bodies, a promenade—it we you he she—

move through the water column, skins of bodies,

similar, discreet—company, crowd, collection,

shoal and plural movement of consciousness.

Setting and set by the turbid water in motion,

the new law of movement. Dissolution

and coming into being. Appear as lights

and images on the screen, your voices faded

to an inaudible and drawn-out O!

meaning here is the place we asked for!

-- peter streckfus

seeking st louis

2011-07-24T14:58:00.005-05:00

my obsession with this city has reached new heights lately, and i am finding myself in desperate need of an outlet. so: i've decided to start a new blog devoted entirely to pictures i've taken of buildings and structures and faded signs and beautiful old houses built at the turn of the century (the lou's hey day) and abandoned industrial buildings and street scenes around st louis. you can find it here: "seeking st louis" at brickandlimestone.blogspot.com.

haunting

2011-07-20T17:30:00.002-05:00

for harriet

2011-07-18T14:56:00.004-05:00

when the dying, in the hands of their rough lover,

open their eyes. when the clouds have cleared

from their pupils, and the rains have washed out

all the brides. when the clear eyes of death

look into themselves endlessly. and the grasping

is finished, and also the questioning. when gratitude

sets free its colts to bolt and scamper. when the gardener

becomes the garden, and the oak tree remembers the acorn.

when the vanishing is multiplied without ceasing

in the barbershop mirrors of the heart. when the ocean

recapitulates its waves, and the sky recalls the flight of birds.

when everything is fled but love. when the gaze of the dying

meets your own. when nothing is said, or left unsaid.

when you nod and walk out the hospice door,

the day you enter is not the day you left.

-- richard schiffman

(from journal of american medical association)

cannibalism at its cutest

2011-07-17T14:59:00.003-05:00

the beans eating (green) beans

(no lie -- first cat i've ever seen to like her veggies)

the woman and the flame

2011-07-15T13:41:00.003-05:00

A bit of light that descends the springhead of a gaze

twin shadow of the eyelash and the rainbow on a face

and round about

who goes there angelically

ambling

Woman the current weather

the current weather matters little to me

my life is always ahead of a hurricane

you are the morning that swoops down on the lamp a night stone

between its teeth

you are the passage of seabirds as well

you who are the wind through the salty ipomeas of consciousness

insinuating yourself from another world

Woman

you are a dragon whose lovely color is dispersed and darkens so

as to constitute the

inevitable tenor of things

I am used to brush fires

I am used to ashen bush rats and the bronze ibis of the flame

Woman binder of the foresail gorgeous ghost

helmet of algae of eucalyptus

dawn isn't it

and in the abandon of the ribbands

very savory swimmer

-- Aimé Césaire

fabric n' fotos

2011-07-09T19:20:00.008-05:00

i took an image transfer workshop today and learned

how to print photos on silk and cotton! what a dream.

i broke the cardinal odd-number rule and

made this quadtych collage for g, out of three images i took at his outcrop

site this winter and one (on the left) microscope image

that he took in his lab (a thin section of

rock that's probably 450 million years old?? i have been

well taught and can recognize crinoids

and brachiopods now [tube or clam-like fossil forms

scattered in limestone], but no idea

what the small shiny flakes here are formally called.).

the largest print i made was this 23' x 28', on silk.

we used a huuuuuge inkjet printer - just turning it on

sounded like an airplane readying for take-off. the silk is attached

on the back to paper (still included here - won't take it off til tomorrow)

so it slides through the printer easily. this collage includes three images

from a st. louis snowstorm in march, arguably the worst

of the year. i drove/slid around forest park taking pictures

(entry about it found here). eachpanel is through a different window

in the car. from left to right: windshield (which was slightly fogged

hence the fuzziness), sunroof, driver side window.

the colors are much more saturated

and pleasing in real life, thankfully.

i won't share everything i did, since some of them

are still awaiting delivery to unsuspecting recipients, but this final

one is a collage of two photos i took through a

stone lattice wall at the taj mahal a couple years ago.

the smaller photos were made with at-home basic inkjet

printers, believe it or not. which means ... you can

try this at home! i'm definitely going to

this summer, with plans for scarves/ribbons/quilting

in mind...

bringing down the bricks

2011-07-07T18:52:00.002-05:00

so many old buildings in st. louis that are sadly seeing their end this summer...

pruny paws

2011-07-07T18:43:00.005-05:00

(upon showing these to g: 'amazing that right after fixing your phone you bravely take it with you into the bathtub...')

stroke of insight

2011-07-05T17:13:00.004-05:00

fascinating story and well-written book very much worth reading (quick, too!) - 'stroke of insight' by jill bolte taylor, a neuroscientist who had a stroke at thirty-seven and describes in detail both her experience, which included a complete shutdown of her left hemisphere (the neurotic, detail-oriented side), a distorted 'lala land' consciousness, the terror of realizing the reality of her stroke oscillating with the pleasantness of living entirely in peace-oriented right brain. In the book she also recounts her heroic regaining of full function over the course of eight years. the above is her TED talk, brought to my attention by the talented nicole at blue bicicletta (thank you!)

bloomington bound

2011-07-05T16:41:00.008-05:00

i recently took a trip to bloomington, indiana to visit the legendary homestead of my dear roommate L. over the years i've heard stories of the summertime wonderland bloomington can be, with gorgeous green countryside, walkable and enjoyable downtown (ala lawrence, ks) and stately architecture on the campus of indiana university. the trip did not disappoint. to follow, a small visual sampling of the weekend (minus the lake views, sculpture park in the forest and the best wheat beer i've had outside of kansas city):

(a beseeching statue amongst trees felled following a destructive storm)

(a gazebo built and dedicated in mid-1800s; the stained

glass reminds of the lou)

(' a good book if the precious life-blood of a master-spirit')

(the viaduct - miles long and impossibly high, it links

the railroad from one end of the valley to the other)

(wash away your wildlife! from one of L's favorite

childhood books, [re]discovered in her living room)

(the beans came along for the ride and was

an intrepid little traveler, pictured here at a mcdonald's pitstop.

she spent her formative kitten weeks in bloomington last summer,

and seemed to love reliving her salad days)

for once, then something

2011-07-05T16:32:00.004-05:00

Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs

Always wrong to the light, so never seeing

Deeper down in the well than where the water

Gives me back in a shining surface picture

Me myself in the summer heaven godlike

Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.

Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,

I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,

Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,

Something more of the depths—and then I lost it.

Water came to rebuke the too clear water.

One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple

Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,

Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?

Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

-- robert frost

book of love

2011-05-31T22:29:00.008-05:00

fuz got hitched! the wedding was exemplary of weddings done right (and they planned it all themselves!) - a true expression of the individuals themselves

and wholehearted celebration by all.

i'm sure these sounds of celebration are ringing from all corners of the internet, what with the eclectic, expressive and connected group of friends these two have. the following are the lyrics to 'book of love' by magnetic fields, the song played by their royally gifted musician buddies as the to-be-weds walked down the aisle... (i have it on repeat)

The book of love is long and boring
No one can lift the damn thing
It's full of charts and facts and figures
And instructions for dancing

But I, I love it when you read to me
And you, you can read me anything

The book of love has music in it
In fact, that's where music comes from
Some of it is just transcendental
Some of it is just really dumb, but

I, I love it when you sing to me, and
You, you can sing me anything

The book of love is long and boring

And written very long ago

It's full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes

And things we're all too young to know, but

I, I love it when you give me things
And you, you ought to give me wedding rings

---------

(photos from stl --> philly. none from the wedding,

as i brilliantly forgot my camera. the evo came through

and kept me entertained

on the flight, at least, but then broke just in time

for the ceremony...)

near misses

2011-05-31T21:03:00.008-05:00

(taken after rigby and i huddled in the basement while

funnel clouds passed overhead one afternoon in

a terrifyingly tornadoey may)

The truck that swerved to miss the stroller in which I slept.

My mother turning from the laundry basket just in time to see me open the third-story window to call to the cat.

In the car, on ice, something spinning and made of history snatched me back from the guardrail and set me down between two gentle trees. And that time I thought to look both ways on the one-way street.

And when the doorbell rang, and I didn’t answer, and just before I slipped one night into a drunken dream, I remembered to blow out the candle burning on the table beside me.

It's a miracle, I tell you, this middle-aged woman scanning the cans on the grocery store shelf. Hidden in the works of a mysterious clock are her many deaths, and yet the whole world is piled up before her on a banquet table again today. The timer, broken. The sunset smeared across the horizon in the girlish cursive of the ocean, Forever, For You.

And still she can offer only her body as proof:

The way it moves a little slower every day. And the cells, ticking away. A crow pecking at a sweater. The last hour waiting patiently on a tray for her somewhere in the future. The spoon slipping quietly into the beautiful soup.

--Laura Kasischke

early 90s mystery solved

2011-05-22T12:26:00.003-05:00

FINALLY -- my roommate and i were reexploring our youth through disney singalongs this weekend when a key moment unfolded -- the discovery of the actual lyrics to the beginning of 'the circle of life' in the lion king, PLUS their meaning. paradigm shift.

also, pure nostalgia: according to my father, i used to watch dumbo everyday when i was four or five and BAWL at the same part - when his mother sings dumbo this song. it is still SO. SAD.

traveling light

2011-05-22T11:16:00.002-05:00

I'm only leaving you

for a handful of days,

but it feels as though

I'll be gone forever—

the way the door closes

behind me with such solidity,

the way my suitcase

carries everything

I'd need for an eternity

of traveling light.

I've left my hotel number

on your desk, instructions

about the dog

and heating dinner. But

like the weather front

they warn is on its way

with its switchblades

of wind and ice,

our lives have minds

of their own.

- linda pastan

turn it up to eleven!!

2011-05-15T21:21:00.001-05:00

i concur, sir

2011-05-14T11:59:00.006-05:00

i'm on my psychiatry rotation right now and finally feel like i've found a home in medicine. for many reasons, and here was one:

[background: this patient was admitted for exacerbation of schizophrenic symptoms (he vehemently insists he is a voodoo priest) after not taking his medication for several months. he told nurses at an outside hospital that he was planning on storming the illinois state capitol and harming the state attorney, because he has not yet received the financial retribution he deserves for housing drug dealers and using his voodoo powers to prevent them from killing themselves and others. aside from the fact that he wanted to possibly murder a man, he was a pleasant guy and we talked over the course of the week about how he wanted to change his life when he got out, how he was illiterate and wanted to learn how to read, how much he had enjoyed reading classes before, etc.

this conversation took place on his last day before discharge...]

me: hi mr. X, i wrote down a couple numbers of places you can call to find reading classes, so you can maybe get back into learning how to read in the next couple weeks...

patient (eyes really big, huge smile, nodding head emphatically): oh yeaaaa! thank you! man, i tried a class here one time, i know i'll never be smart enough for college classes, but i even passed this reading class and it was really fun!

me: [heart breaking, increased eye moisture and blinking]

patient: thanks so much, i'll give them a call tomorrow. but you know [tone turns serious], if you're gonna work in this place [psych ward], man, you know, you should be taking classes, like martial arts, self-defense shit, you know what i mean? cause people in here [voice drops to a whisper, sideway glances ensue]...

... people in here are CRAZY.

aaaaaaaaand END SCENE

samurai song

2011-05-13T23:11:00.003-05:00

When I had no roof I made

Audacity my roof. When I had

No supper my eyes dined.

When I had no eyes I listened.

When I had no ears I thought.

When I had no thought I waited.

When I had no father I made

Care my father. When I had

No mother I embraced order.

When I had no friend I made

Quiet my friend. When I had no

Enemy I opposed my body.

When I had no temple I made

My voice my temple. I have

No priest, my tongue is my choir.

When I have no means fortune

Is my means. When I have

Nothing, death will be my fortune.

Need is my tactic, detachment

Is my strategy. When I had

No lover I courted my sleep.

- robert pinsky

bring me your first-born sun

2011-05-13T15:44:00.006-05:00

Tower Grove Park is an unbelievable treat in the spring, and, as it's directly across the street, oftentimes where I gravitate towards in the afternoon, whether I'm planning to run or be as stationary as possible on a cozy towel in the warm sun.

In lieu of a poem, some info on this slice of heaven in the city. Wikipedia almost does it justice, so I copped their entire article (click link to see their pics, cause mine certainly don't correlate AT ALL, aside from the fact they were taken there):

Tower Grove Park is a municipal park in the City of Saint Louis. Most of its land was donated to the city by Henry Shawin 1868. It is on 289 acres (1.17 km²) adjacent to the Missouri Botanical Garden, another of Shaw’s legacies.

The park features eleven pavilions of picturesque design, dating from the Victorian era, which provide shady rests from which visitors can enjoy the many lovely views. Its landscape includes a lily pond and formal plantings; the Piper Palm House, the site of music and other special events; as well as tennis courts; a wading pool for small children; open expanses of green; softball diamonds and soccer fields; and tall specimen trees and a great variety of bushes. The park has been designated a National Historic Landmark.

Many events, from picnics to weddings, are held in the park throughout the year. During the summer, a number of large festivals are held in the park, including ones featuring themes such as international, pagan, and Gay Pride.

Since 2005, from May through October, a farmers' market is held from 8:30-12:30 Saturday mornings just west of the Wading Pool Pavilion. It features local and organic farmers offering fresh produce, baked goods and preserves, as well as prepared foods and drinks, teas and coffees.

The park features nearly 400 species of trees and bushes. The park is a well-known birdwatching area, particularly during the spring and fall bird migration seasons.

It is part of the Mississippi Flyway and migrating birds rest in the park along their journey. Forty percent of North American songbirds and waterbirds use this route. Examples are many types of warblers, orioles, and Canadian geese.

maybe janet, maybe not

2011-05-12T14:31:00.000-05:00

Maybe Janet, Maybe Not
2011
Digital Photograph
8”x11”

on display at St. Louis Artist's Guild Gallery June 25 to August 19

as part of the 'Drift' exhibition

glory, then, in the springs that are yours

2011-05-11T18:00:00.001-05:00

I stuck my head out the window this morning

and spring kissed me bang in the face.

-- Langston Hughes

Spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Chicago is an October sort of city even in spring.

-- Nelson Algren

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.

-- Margaret Atwood

I want to do to you what spring does with the cherry trees.

-- Pablo Neruda

Sweet springtime is my time

is your time

is our time for springtime

is love time and

viva sweet love.

-- e.e. cummings

A little Madness in the spring

Is wholesome even for the King.

-- Emily Dickinson

For every person who has ever lived there has come,

at last, a spring he will never see.

Glory then in the springs that are yours.

-- Pam Brown

Science has never drummed up quite as effective a tranquilizing agent
as a sunny spring day.
-- W. Earl Hall

Winter is on my head,

but eternal spring is in my heart.

-- Victor Hugo

To be interested in the changing seasons

is a happier state of mind than

to be hopelessly in love with spring.

-- George Santayana

the libraries didn't burn

2011-05-09T21:50:00.003-05:00

despite books kindled in electronic flames.

The locket of bookish love

still opens and shuts.

But its words have migrated

to a luminous elsewhere.

Neither completely oral nor written —

a somewhere in between.

Then will oak, willow,

birch, and olive poets return

to their digital tribes —

trees wander back to the forest?

- elaine equi

(discovered by my roommate and ardent lover of books, L!)

sometimes, there are just not enough rocks

2011-04-26T22:16:00.003-05:00

forgetting something

2011-04-26T22:15:00.000-05:00

Try this—close / your eyes. No, wait, when—if—we see each other / again the first thing we should do is close our eyes—no, / first we should tie our hands to something / solid—bedpost, doorknob—otherwise they (wild birds) / might startle us / awake. Are we forgetting something? What about that / warehouse, the one beside the airport, that room / of black boxes, a man in each box? I hear / if you bring this one into the light he will not stop / crying, if you show this one a photo of his son / his eyes go dead. Turn up / the heat, turn up the song. First thing we should do / if we see each other again is to make / a cage of our bodies—inside we can place / whatever still shines.

- nick flynn

no one was like vermeer

2011-04-25T16:57:00.002-05:00

images from france's ghislain mirat 'no one was like vermeer' series.

also has a gorgeous collection of landscapes, polaroids and professional work:

school prayer

2011-04-23T19:16:00.005-05:00

In the name of the daybreak
and the eyelids of morning
and the wayfaring moon
and the night when it departs,

I swear I will not dishonor
my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,
as a healer of misery,
as a messenger of wonder,
as an architect of peace.

In the name of the sun and its mirrors
and the day that embraces it
and the cloud veils drawn over it
and the uttermost night
and the male and the female
and the plants bursting with seed
and the crowning seasons
of the firefly and the apple,

I will honor all life
—wherever and in whatever form
it may dwell -- on Earth my home
and in the mansions of the stars.

-- diane ackerman

the things

2011-04-14T13:23:00.004-05:00

When I walk in my house I see pictures,

bought long ago, framed and hanging
—de Kooning, Arp, Laurencin, Henry Moore—
that I've cherished and stared at for years,
yet my eyes keep returning to the masters
of the trivial—a white stone perfectly round,
tiny lead models of baseball players, a cowbell,
a broken great-grandmother's rocker,
a dead dog's toy—valueless, unforgettable
detritus that my children will throw away
as I did my mother's souvenirs of trips
with my dead father, Kodaks of kittens,
and bundles of cards from her mother Kate.

-- donald hall

when i park cars, i don't pay for the meter

2011-04-02T17:57:00.002-05:00

(true story)

this is me on my surgery rotation

2011-04-02T17:55:00.003-05:00

always two seconds away from a meltdown.

how do people live this way all their lives?

(taken last summer at the missouri botanical gardens)

in my mind, i've gone to carolina

2011-04-02T12:32:00.002-05:00

(soaking up the interstitum at clt airport)

passing the afternoon, in a bus

2011-04-02T00:36:00.008-05:00

There are times that walk from you like some passing afternoon

Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon

And she chose a yard to burn but the ground remembers her

Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms

There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days

Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made

And she's chosen to believe in the hymns her mother sings

Sunday pulls its children from their piles of fallen leaves

There are sailing ships that pass all our bodies in the grass

Springtime calls her children 'till she let's them go at last

And she's chosen where to be, though she's lost her wedding ring

Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds

There are things we can't recall, blind as night that finds us all

Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls

But my hands remember hers, rolling 'round the shaded ferns

Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I'd never learned

There are names across the sea, only now I do believe

Sometimes, with the windows closed, she'll sit and think of me

But she'll mend his tattered clothes and they'll kiss as if they know

Her baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone.

-- 'passing afternoon', iron and wine

(en route from nyc to boston)

jersey circuitry

2011-03-31T15:43:00.003-05:00

circuit board...

...patch from an 80's sequined dress...

...new jersey flyover at night?

bucket list #1: touch a cloud

2011-03-31T12:33:00.003-05:00

up in the clouds; from this new york times slideshow

(my own cloud collection, ever-expanding and requiring an update)

march weather, you two-faced bastard

2011-03-26T16:09:00.012-05:00

This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,
Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,

Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between
Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes.

I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration
Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze
Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration,
Faces of people streaming across my gaze.

And I, what fountain of fire am I among
This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is tossed
About like a shadow buffeted in the throng
Of flames, ashadow that's gone astray, and is lost.

(all taken with the camera phone. not bad, evooooooooooooooooooooo)

covered in cover art

2011-03-26T12:59:00.003-05:00

the blog 'corpus libris', now three years running (!!), is devoted entirely to pictures of people extrapolating book covers from jacket art to reality....

the beans is famous

2011-03-23T20:08:00.003-05:00

with a face like that? of course.

A mother is a story with no beginning

2011-03-19T17:55:00.007-05:00

She is as in a field a silken tent

At midday when the sunny summer breeze

Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,

So that in guys it gently sways at ease,

And its supporting central cedar pole,

That is its pinnacle to heavenward

And signifies the sureness of the soul,

Seems to owe naught to any single cord,

But strictly held by none, is loosely bound

By countless silken ties of love and thought

To every thing on earth the compass round,

And only by one's going slightly taut

In the capriciousness of summer air

Is of the slightlest bondage made aware.

-- 'the silken tent', by robert frost

(fourteen lines, one sentence)

from this new yorker article about a woman remembering her mother that reminds me of times I have tried , and watched my mom try, to 're-exist' my grandmother:

"I thought of that poem one wintry night nearly a year after her death. Walking through the West Village, I saw on a sidewalk bookseller’s table a cheap paperback copy of a novel my mom had given me when I was a teen-ager—a novel that, she told me, had meant a lot to her. I bought it and read it that night, feeling that I was learning something new about both myself and her, since she had loved that novel, with its story of a young Irish-Catholic woman struggling to understand herself. I would always look for clues to her in books and poems, I realized. I would always search for the echoes of the lost person, the scraps of words and breath, the silken ties that say, Look: she existed." - meghan o'rourke

gray scale

2011-03-10T19:38:00.006-06:00

Oh, the coming-out-of-nowhere moment

when, nothing

happens

no what-have-I-to-do-today-list

maybe half a moment

the rush of traffic stops.

The whir of I should be, I should be, I should be

slows to silence,

the white cotton curtains hanging still.

-- marie howe, 'the moment'

the day is gone

2011-02-20T22:39:00.006-06:00

The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!

Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast,

Warm breath, light whisper, tender semitone,

Bright eyes, accomplished shape, and lang'rous waist!

Faded the flower and all its budded charms,

Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,

Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,

Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise!

Vanished unseasonably at shut of eve,

When the dusk holiday—or holinight—

Of fragrant-curtained love begins to weave

The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight;

But, as I've read love's missal through today,

He'll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray.

- john keats

his view, her view

2011-02-15T19:14:00.007-06:00

why don't you

linger a while;

let the view be kind to you.

textures and time travel

2011-02-13T19:59:00.006-06:00

(from a fossil hunt with G outside of st. louis)

sidewalk dreams and skies with seams

2011-02-13T19:53:00.007-06:00

with warmth return

jet trails stitching seams in the sky

and puddles like tears in the sidewalk,

an upside-down world exposed

(way to go, evo camera)

tread softly

2011-01-19T16:41:00.001-06:00

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939)

a single garment of destiny

2011-01-17T16:32:00.001-06:00

All I'm saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

- mlk jr

kitty cure

2011-01-14T16:47:00.001-06:00

happy new yurrrrrr...

2011-01-03T15:41:00.008-06:00

(right after she tore down our tapestry in our living room)

... and welcome home!

boiler room

2010-12-28T21:30:00.006-06:00

hi ho the eileenie-o

2010-12-26T00:32:00.006-06:00

(dedicated to a sweet little cat,

who came to us a stray

with a tiny scar on her tummy

and not a malicious bone in her body,

whose meow was nearly inaudible

but step around the house far too loud for her size,

whose ears were never in alignment,

who was at least once mistaken for a cow

by a toddler learning her farm animals...

she will be much missed)

small sweet sounds

from small pink lips

and padded paws that pad too hard

with rotating lobes and bovine robes

makes one small cat
of belly scarred.

and so this is christmas

2010-12-25T18:34:00.008-06:00

spent the day finishing jose saramago's 'death with interruptions'.

one down, three to go.
some of my favorite lines, interspersed amongst pics of wanderings around the yard

in rhode island today...

'urge people to keep calm about everything and nothing and to remain quietly in the fold of whatever happens'

'the solo is over, the orchestra washed over the cello's song like a great, slow sea, gently submerging it, absorbing and amplifying that song as if to lead it into a place where music was transmuted into silence, into the merest shadow of a vibration that touched the skin like the final, inaudible murmur of a kettle-drum on which a passing butterfly had momentarily alighted.'

'because he knew what the fish was trying to say when again and again it ruptured the delicate meniscus where water meets air.'
'the church, of course, galloped into the arena of the debate mounted on its usual war-horse, namely, that god moves in mysterious ways, which means, in layman's terms somewhat tinged with verbal impiety, that we cannot even peer through the crack in the door of heaven to see what's going on inside.'

'that's a very fine-sounding word, full of promises and uncertainties, you say metamorphosis and move on, it seems you don't understand that words are the labels we stick on things, no the thing themselves.'

'... a flag weeping on the balcony outside...'

'... a young man of only forty-nine summers...'

'[the cellist's] life runs between the magical lines of the pentagram, searching for the deep heart of the music, pause, sound, systole, diastole.'

'the mild embers of that soft animal warmth'

'there is always a chance that one day something will casually insinuate itself into the dread carcass, a soft chord from a cello, an ingenuous trill on a piano, or the mere sight of some sheet music open on a chair, which will make you remember that the thing you refuse to think about, that yo have never lived and that, do what you may, you never will live...'

the wild self

2010-12-08T17:55:00.003-06:00

the doors to the world of the wild self are few,

but precious.

if you have a deep scar, that is a door;

if you love the sky and the water so much you almost

cannot bear it,

that is a door.

if you yearn for a deeper life,

a full life,

a sane life,

that is a door

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes on songsoflight

don gon make it

2010-12-08T17:47:00.002-06:00

gon make this scarf, eaaaazaaay peeeeaaazaayy

cherry blossom storm

2010-12-06T22:33:00.000-06:00

A mother is a mother still,
The holiest thing alive.
Coleridge, "The Three Graves"

"Draping my body in the usual sterile manner,

they placed me in a supine position and adequate

general anesthesia was obtained. Then a collar incision

was made at the base of my neck and the strap muscles

incised, the dissection continuing sharply over

both my lobes as inferior vessels and veins

were isolated, litigated, and divided, the cut surfaces

like a cherry blossom storm, except for a small amount

of beefy red identified at the pole. Awakening later,

I heard a voice muttering: Don't worry about adultery

(he sleeps in a different room). Don't go down after

midnight. Don't take tranquillizers. Don't love. Don't hate.

Sometimes, the paralysis of a soul awakens it. Sometimes,

awful things have their own kind of beauty."

-- henri cole

string study

2010-12-06T16:44:00.005-06:00

tutto bene

2010-12-05T22:27:00.002-06:00

let the light one in

2010-12-05T22:07:00.006-06:00

It's a gift, this cloudless November morning

warm enough for you to walk without a jacket
along your favorite path.

The rhythmic shushing

of your feet through fallen leaves should be
enough to quiet the mind, so it surprises you
when you catch yourself telling off your boss
for a decade of accumulated injustices,
all the things you've never said circling inside you.

It's the rising wind that pulls you out of it,
and you look up to see a cloud of leaves
swirling in sunlight, flickering against the blue
and rising above the treetops, as if the whole day
were sighing

Let it go, let it go,

for this moment at least, let it all go

-- jeffery harrison

the whole world stitched with eyes

2010-12-02T13:04:00.003-06:00

zerogarden

2010-11-16T19:18:00.000-06:00

Within the horizon of gabardine
hills, raku-
fired as if forged in the kiln
of georgic Georgia mid-
July, the trees halloo Tallulah
Gorge, velarium & an event in
themselves, gouged by blunt per

-sephones of crimson & of green
—gren
-ache, wasabi, hen
-na, Fanta, ferric, gren
-adine—

& a few miles south
off 328, in Tugaloo State Park,
a beach that shouldn't
be there is, the lake now
8 feet low, & fishing lures
& sinkers & bobbers are
snagged on roots of the
oak've eroded, & mica
speckling reddish clay where
one can walk beneath an
orphaned dock
are a trillion mini
mirrors among the mullions
composing, composting the bank,
to show the singular, macular
sun what it looks like—severally

-- by Andrew Zawacki

books

2010-11-15T17:38:00.002-06:00

How you loved to read in the snow and when your
face turned to water from the internal heat
combined with the heavy crystals or maybe it was
reversus you went half-blind and your eyelashes
turned to ice the time you walked through swirls
with dirty tears not far from the rat-filled river
or really a mile away—or two—in what
you came to call the Aristotle room
in a small hole outside the Carnegie library.

-- gerald stern

translations

2010-09-20T11:04:00.001-05:00

My mother was led into the world
by her teeth

Pulled
like a bull
into the
heather

She only ever wanted to be a mother her whole life and
nothing else, not even a human being!

One body turned into
another body

Pulled like that
by the golden voices of children

A bull
out of hell

Called out
her teeth out in front of her
her children

pulling

*

First I walk my mother out
into the field
by a leash
by a lifetime
then she walks me out
our coats
shimmering

I brush her hair

Wipe the flies away from her eyes

They are my eyes

Who will ride my mother
when we aren't around
anymore?

Her children won't

Turned from one thing into another until you are a bull
standing in a field

The field just beginning
to whistle us
home

*

Then I am led by the mouth
out into the yellow
field

The light turning to water in the early evening, the insects
dying in the cold and coming back in the morning

Something has to come back

Wings and
shit

I have put on my horse-head

Led by a bit

A lead

My leader is tall and the hair on her forearms is gold

It is a miracle
to lower your eyes
into the tall grass
and eat

-- michael dickman

chester

2010-09-15T20:02:00.005-05:00

Wallace Stevens is beyond fathoming, he is so strange;

it is as if he had a morbid secret he would rather perish than disclose . . .

—Marrianne Moore to William Carlos Williams

Another day, which is usually how they come:

A cat at the foot of the bed, noncommittal

In its blankness of mind, with the morning light
Slowly filling the room, and fragmentary
Memories of last night's video and phone calls.
It is a feeling of sufficiency, one menaced
By the fear of some vague lack, of a simplicity
Of self, a self without a soul, the nagging fear
Of being someone to whom nothing ever happens.
Thus the fantasy of the narrative behind the story,
Of the half-concealed life that lies beneath
The ordinary one, made up of ordinary mornings
More alike in how they feel than what they say.
They seem like luxuries of consciousness,
Like second thoughts that complicate the time
One simply wastes. And why not? Mere being
Is supposed to be enough, without the intricate
Evasions of a mystery or offstage tragedy.
Evenings follow on the afternoons, lingering in
The living room and listening to the stereo
While Peggy Lee sings "Is That All There Is?"
Amid the morning papers and the usual
Ghosts keeping you company, but just for a while.
The true soul is the one that flickers in the eyes
Of an animal, like a cat that lifts its head and yawns
And looks at you, and then goes back to sleep.

-- john koethe

artist as farmer

2010-09-07T14:49:00.008-05:00

my good friend janet, the wonderfully warm and talented woman of letters, recently posted this piece on the blog 'telling herstories' about the artist as farmer , farmer as artist.
for more of janet's work, visit her own blog or hear selections from her published cd-series 'sightlines: a poet's diary', a collection of stories spanning six generations of her family history.

(photo from missouri botanical gardens)

station

2010-08-31T19:41:00.002-05:00

Days you are sick, we get dressed slow,

find our hats, and ride the train.
We pass a junkyard and the bay,
then a dark tunnel, then a dark tunnel.

You lose your hat. I fin it. The train
sighs open at Burlingame,
past dark tons of scrap and water.
I carry you down the black steps.

Burlingame is the size of joy;
a race past bakeries, gold rings
in open black cases. I don't care
who sees my crooked smile

or what erases it, past the bakery,
when you tire. We ride the blades again
beside the crooked bay. You smile.
I hold you like a hole holds light.

We wear out hats and ride the knives.
They cannot fix you. They try and try.
Tunnel! Into the dark open we go.
Days you are sick, we get dressed slow.

-- maria hummel

urban jungle

2010-08-23T20:41:00.004-05:00

a brilliance likely buried amongst the graveyard of urban planning theses past and rejected, resurrected to surreal life in south sudan ... aesthetically pleasing to the aliens that watch our every move but urban planning at it best, probably not....

plans for Juba and Wau, respectively... the rhino’s unmentionables region will play home to “rural socialized housing”. Eeks. In Wau, "the head (government and military) are supported by an elongated neck (the commercial sector and “international community”)". Meta-meta.

i'd like to rest my heavy head tonight on a bed of california stars

2010-08-21T18:44:00.004-05:00

Bend low again, night of summer stars.

So near you are, sky of summer stars,
So near, a long-arm man can pick off stars,
Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl,
So near you are, summer stars,
So near, strumming, strumming,
So lazy and hum-strumming.

-- 'summer stars', carl sandburg

stag beetle -- LOVE IT

2010-08-13T18:32:00.006-05:00

(yim-yams, japanese chocolate-and-sticks dessert)

silly beans/riggletowns/beansy/riggle-nugget/
beansquad/riggletron/baby beans

dialect of a skirt

2010-08-13T15:47:00.001-05:00

The young girl wanted a new voice. After all, people got

new things every day. A new hip, a new nose, a new set
of suspenders. She adored the consonants that landed
like wooden shoes. She loved the type of L-sounds
that made a mouth drool from the back of the tongue
to the front. She practiced her new voice into seashells,
tin cans, caves. She gave her first performance quietly,
into the ear of her sleeping dog. She could tell by his snorting
that his dreams were of fat tree trunks and black, truffle-filled
soil. Later, she drove to the local gas station and used her new
voice to ask for a pack of cigarettes. She wasn't wearing a bra,
but the attendant didn't notice. He was too busy listening
to the way sound seemed to drip out of her mouth
as she said the word, Camel.

-- erica miriam fabri

ode to the hippocratic panic

2010-08-11T23:13:00.000-05:00

this is shameless stealing from/promoting of A's blog, hippocratic panic, which i just finished catching up on. yes, your apartment IS beautiful, and my eyes are drooling too.

(anita ekberg -- barr bodies can do no better.
if mad men doesn't pick up on this and do some photo shoots of
cynthia hendricks as her in 'la dolce vita', photoshop will have something to
say abou tit -- [not fixing that typo...])

jivin' jackets

2010-08-11T10:25:00.005-05:00

coralie-bickford smith's newest art deco a-go-go jacket designs. came across her in roaming left bank books in cwe with mama generali a couple weekends ago. her designs stood out so strikingly on the bookstore shelves it literally stopped us both in our tracks. she can do no wrong.
(from design*sponge)

til you know me well

2010-08-10T22:23:00.006-05:00

1) holy monday.
2) phoenix setlist = 2 for 2. just as miraculous, just as much hilarity. we'll have to find another ostentatiously large frame.
3) they dropped a white curtain for 'love like a sunset' (the shadowy pick) and drew those notes ouuuuuuuuuuuuut.
4) we got caught in the middle of a furrr reaaalz police car chase on the way home. a white chrysler sebring blazing up behind us, cruisin at a cool 70 miles per hour ON GRAND, crosses into oncoming traffic in the other lane, weaving in-and-out, animal style. no sooner than a second later FIVE police cars fly by wailing behind him. we followed from a distance but never caught the climax. at least someone besides michael scott is having fun in a sebring.